Chapter 4 - UNWINDING THE WEB
By noon, security had escorted Callum and Vivienne out of the Wacker Drive tower. The scene in the lobby had been captured by several dozen smartphone cameras: Callum furiously attempting to cover his face with an overcoat while building security guards firmly guided him past the turnstiles, and Vivienne shrieking about unlawful termination while clutching a cardboard box filled with desk organizers.
I didn't stay to watch the spectacle. I occupied the corner office—the very office Callum had remodeled with Italian leather furniture and private scotch bars while ignoring my financial warnings.
Everett walked in, closing the door behind him, and placed a red folder on the mahogany desk.
“Deloitte dug deeper into the offshore accounts,” Everett said, taking a seat opposite me. “It’s worse than we thought, Zariah. Callum wasn’t just siphoning money to buy penthouses and luxury cars for Vivienne. He was running a shadow debt pool to prop up his failed logistics venture in Texas.”
I leaned back, steepled my fingers, and exhaled slowly. “How bad is the exposure?”
“Eleven million dollars in uncovered promissory notes,” Everett replied frankly. “He signed personal guarantees. Because you two are still legally married, those creditors are going to come knocking on your personal estate unless we sever the marital assets before the end of the week.”
“He tried to drown me with him,” I whispered, feeling the cold sting of Callum’s betrayal settle deep in my chest. He hadn’t just been unfaithful; he had known his financial house of cards was collapsing, and he had intended for me to take the fall as co-signatory on marital property lines. That was why he had pushed me away. That was why he had tried to humiliate me at Alden House—he wanted me to initiate an angry, hasty divorce before the financial audit uncovered the disaster, locking me into assuming marital liabilities.
“He thought I was too soft to fight,” I said, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the gray waters of Lake Michigan. “He thought if he broke my spirit, I’d just sign a standard settlement and walk away quietly with the Lake Forest house.”
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“He miscalculated,” Everett noted with a faint smirk. “So what is our next move?”
“We don’t just sever the assets, Everett. We serve him with a formal civil complaint for corporate fraud, freeze every account bearing his name, and offer him one singular lifeline: complete surrender of all company shares and assets, or federal prosecution.”
